bell - a verbalization of consciousness

The Idea of Moon

Gurdjieff explained the idea of moon from a new direction.
Given, man is a microcosm that replicates all that exists in the cosmos.
A line from absolute to the moon exists in man.
A representation of the Absolute in man is full consciousness.
The effort to free oneself from identification creates a corresponding amount of free attention.
The presence of free attention in man is the second order representation of the absolute.
A foretaste of what is Full Consciousness.
The moon in man is sensation, a broken off part of original consciousness in man.
A part toward which man who wishes to work has primary Responsibility.
Sensation in man is the growing part of his innner cosmos.
The ray of creation extends from free attention to sensation.
Growth of being and growth of sensation is growth of moon in man that
requires particles of free Attention for growth of its atmosphere.
Sensation is the atmosphere of being.
No growth of being will take place without a corresponding prior growth in sensation.
Of course, when we apply the term growth to sensation we must understand that it
applies to the growth of the roots, not of what we might think of as leaves.
For example, sensation is not only skin (ie., leaves), but of the entire inner structure,
including skeleton, muscles, and organs as well.
In lifting an arm, everything on the other side of intention is sensation.
Man must be able to radiate particles of free attention from
the moment an intention enters his bloodstream and neuorlogical system to the action.
The work on sensation is the infrastructure of being.
No growth of being is possible without a corresponding prior growth in sensation.

Impediments.

Bottom line, there are impediments to our growth as human beings. We all know this. We all recognize that we could be better people in certain moments, that we have faults, that we’re not perfect; we all remember events in our lives where the outcomes could have been different, and we may now and again wonder to ourselves: “had i acted another way, instead of the way I did, would things be different?” And I, personally, can’t help but wonder if our own happiness is at stake, or worse, the vivacity of our life itself…. but that’s just me.

And of course there’s that part of our personality that lingers in our innerworld, pushing its chest out, holding its chin high, with its mighty arms crossed in front, saying proudly, and empathically, “I have no regrets! No sense in looking back. I am who I am.” But think about it. How do we improve ourselves without retrospect? Go back to that place, and remember a time where something that then mattered so much… might it have been better? Is there anything that can still be done now to repair? Are there current attitudes or habits that shake out from under our behavior that may exist and persist because of some deep seated, unresolved residue lodged in our past? In fact, no matter how rough and tough our personality leads us to believe, sometimes we can’t even help but think about a past event, whether it be long ago or just the other day.

Well, the real question, the question that philosophers ask, is whether this kind of reflexive thinking can happen IN THE MOMENT! Can we properly assess the situation AS IT HAPPENS so as to be our best Self in the face of an interpersonal tipping point — that is, in a moment where I would usually get angry, or get even; a moment where I would usually say something sarcastic or vain, could I really have the presence to change my ways — And the answer is: YES.

Yes, we can be reflexive in the moment; however, there are impediments. There are things, instantaneous reactions, built up inside of us, conditioned inside of our relationships, and orchestrated inside of our society, that PREVENT us from making any progress, whatsoever. This is true. And chances are, you know this to be true. But I beg you, its not enough for us to live with the statement that “our strengths are our biggest weaknesses”, or “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “I get by, don’t I?” or “I simply don’t have time for this right now,” or any other fickle tempered circum-logical, hopelessly-passive colloquialism. No, its not enough to live with these impediments, we have to ACT on them; in fact, we have to act against them! These statements are our own oppression… locking us into an object, instead of a process; a machine instead of a living, growing being.

These tiny moments, fortified in habit, become our most precious, and defining moments.

I’m sure you’ve already reached an age where you can confidently say, “wow, I truly feel older and more experienced, more knowledgeable. I understand the world better.” This is proof of your aptitude for development. Our biggest, most vile impediment then is not lack of acknowledgement, but rather the lack of will, the lack of “want” to take responsibility for our faults., the lack of making efforts to act on ourselves.

With 3, Real Work Can Begin....

And so, I take a moment for introspection.

Time has swiftly carried me forward, and with each new day, I must reconsider, I must re-evaluate my priorities. Yes, I am without a permanent job, and cash flow is low, but surely there are those things that must perpetuate beyond the challenge of hunting for work, or of working in general… What then deserves my energies? Is it best to concentrate on Being? Is it best to continue fine-tuning my body for sport? Can I build something with my hands, a project perhaps; as in an overhead awning on the fire escape attached to my room to provide a porch when it rains? Should I re-connect with a distant friend, or breathe new air into old idea. When time escapes me as quickly as it is has recently, I have to remember to make REAL time. But then again, what is “real”?

In my last meeting, we took 20 minutes to sit. I used that time to breathe consciously, and purposefully. I inhaled to a mantra, and exhaled to a mantra. With each new breath, I focused on pushing the new oxygen to different parts of my body—to my feet, and then through to my thighs; to my arms and throughout my chest and back; finally I filled my neck and head. And as soon as I was able to relax the space behind my eyes, I opened them to find that 20 minutes had magically passed. I felt refreshed and tired at the same time. While I focused on my breathing, I put special attention to my own weight and the position of my body. I felt my seat under me, the pressure of my crossed legs against each other, and i felt the stillness of my hands folded within eachother, fingertips gently pressing my own soft skin; and I could hear the sounds—the fan in the corner of the room, the distant dog bark beyond the window and down the street, the footsteps of those passing by the hallway near our room, eventually I heard the breathing of others in our circle, and soon after, my own heart beat became audible. At this point, when I could hear myself, I tried to inhale and exahle to every 8 beats of my own being, and for the first time in a long while, I felt fully present in a very real way.

Feeling very much alive in one’s own body is a very “real” quality of being. It is not necessarily something I can fully share in words with someone and do it proper justice, but I’ve found that bringing attention to my body is my first tangible departure from my otherwise procured lens of perogative, and hence, I arrive at a place of more objectivity. By that I mean NOT that anyone can feel what I feel in my own body, nor that we all feel the same way in these moments, but rather, I am at a place observing myself without wishing or wanting it to be different; there is no element of my own subjectivity running the show.

When I am aware of what I bring to the world AS I bring it, then that to me is a very Real moment. And in Real moments, by definition, there is a kind of honest observation—an observing things as they are, without clutter of my curiosities, or imagination, or bias. Simply put, this is “presence”, and further, this is “paying attention.” There is always cost involved in generating attention. Payment for attention is a very real thing. For starters, it takes great energy to hold one’s attention on anything, especially one’s self. And to hold this energy, great & frequent practice is also necessary. The mind wants to wander, and skip to and fro. It would rather drift in thoughts, from one thing to the next, than to sustain its focus. But bringing attention to the body, as hard as it is, is a field for practice, a starting place for strengthening one’s aptitude for attention. The real challenege is paying real attention to myself in action, specifically during my interpersonal interactions and conversations with others, including body langugage and gesture. And so, as this 20 minute sitting session came to its close, and my eyes were opened, one person in the circle made a suggestion:

“Now, having relaxed, and brought attention to the body, let us hold that attention, and remain present, as we open ourselves to questions and dialogue with eachother.”

With my eyes now open, I could feel my thinking sprint from thought to thought: the color of her blouse, the shape of his jaw, the oscillation of the fan, the bright of the overhead light, the sound of her voice, the color of his shoes. I was so easily caught in interest, caught in feeble curiosities. There was such an influx of impressions, that I quickly forgot about my breathing, about the feel of my seat beneath me. I couldn’t sustain attention on my body while my eyes were open to people around me, nor while my ears were listening to these people speak, nor while my brain tried to engage people’s ideas. I hadn’t the practice for it. But I felt lucky just to have recognized this. And so I asked the group:

“I have trouble keeping attention on my body, on my presence, while I interact with the conversations of the group. How can I know that I am present in conversation? What can I do to work on this effort, to keep present to others?”

I was told that “with three, real work can begin.” The original translation from Gurdjieff was that “with three, I can do”. But the message is the same: if we can hold attention in three places at once, we’ll be sure to know in that moment that we are capable of real presence. That is, we are open to things as they are in that moment, truly hearing without wanting or imagining our experience to be different than it actually is. Attention can be spent in many ways, and the task of the “worker” is to strive to sustain three efforts at once. Such efforts include: purposeful breathing, feeling one’s seat beneath them, listening to the sound of one’s own voice while one speaks, feeling the pulse of one’s heartbeat, hearing the sound of silence (you know, that certain timbre or hum that lies in the absence of other, more noticeable sounds), and finally, peripheral vision. There most certainly are other ways/kinds of holding attention, but these are the ones most readily accessible to me, as a young man working on himself. Trying to hold three at once is a real challenge, but this will be my next effort it seems, if I am to improve the breadth and depth of my being.

If I can sustain this kind of right attention, then I can see for myself if my thinking and if my engaging with/of other people becomes more appropriate. I can see for myself if I am in better control of my reactions, of my promises to myself and to others, of my emotional expressions, and of my sincerity. With this kind of effort, I can strive to bring pause to my most important daily moments (eg., those I share with others) and try to be truly there for another person as they are, without assuming them otherwise, or imposing myself on them for my own gain or amusement. But of course… this is so, so difficult; something i could barely do in my sitting group when my sole effort was to TRY to be attentive. I know I will have many days ahead of failing to even remember to try. But I have made another first step here, and this decision has come from understanding. For that much I am thankful. And with that much, I will move forward in time.

I should like to speak about peripheral vision very soon….

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

A friend from Dubai forwarded me this link many years ago… and now we’ve got to wonder how far along they’ve come. Dubai is rollin’ in dough… and they just bought 75% of the Chrysler Building too!

Check out these links too; watch the video. It’s tremendous to say the least.
The World Islands

The Palm Islands

False Love

In my sleep, my heart begins to race a mile a minute, and my pores begin to sweat. A cold heat comes over me, and as my heart sinks, my brain locks up, simply unable to continue with its routine output of even positivity. As my bare arms begin to tightly clench my chest, my own fingers quiver like never before, and i begin to wish the comfort of a deep sea, enveloping me into its abyss, gently lowering me to its lonely bottom sands.

Ooh, I am not myself, Lord. Forgive me for the pain I endure, and the sufferings I cannot let go, for in this moment, I am no longer thinking of the Good, nor of Hope, nor of Love… I have become identified in jealousy— and in this moment i know nothing else. For now, and for my eternity as I see it, all is unclear.

I have seen his face, quite like mine, and yet, nothing like me at all. We are two simple men, from different corners of the earth, and have come to agree in the most purest of forms; ours is an agreement on love, not for eachother, but for a common other. Because of him, I have come to discover a plot beneath my own that changes my own landscape. It is as if we both love two different sides of the same object, and despite what we might think, neither one of us has the whole. We are in a tug of war, and only the rope endugles. To me, this man’s purpose on this earth is entirely my projected prerogative. To me, he is a dark reflection of all that I am, all that I desire, and all that I will be… simply because he yearns for the very same darling that i have sought, the same madam that has mended my wounds and quenched my thirst for love for so many years. I’ve often wondered what against I’ve been tugging all this time to win her complete affection, and what a worthy foe he must be, for I have struggled so. We want so much the same, he and i, that i despise his persistence in as much as I value my own. I did not want to carry his image with me for the rest of my days, but having uncovered him, i now will, and he will forever be forged in my heart and my crippled soul as that which has taken away from the sanctity of my most prized Love.

A better man, a truer lover, may ask me if i have really stumbled upon Love given that simple fact that i am so easily troubled by the eye of another, who lusts for my lover only never to have her as i do. In response to which, i bequeath in agreement with tears of fear and trepidity. With suspicion eating me away from the inside, can I be certain he does not have her like I do? I am the fool, it seems. Perhaps I have not loved enough. Perhaps I have not given due cause for our love to walk in proud cadence. My eyes spent so far forward, I pity my own self for missing something in the Present of it all…. Such a door left open allows for the avant curious types to pursue, and yes, yes, perhaps love is a fight and a negotiation, something needed to stand the test of time, a heave and twist of relentless tugging, and here, in my naivete, I have mistakenly taken for granted our love, thinking it smooth and unabashed and unwavering. I have the power to make a choice in the matter, and yet, should I gracefully bow out of the way, the weaker in me wonders if this secret admirer would take better care of the love that she deserves. From these inner depths of projection, and to my conscious dismay, I cannot know in truth whats best for me; but alas, my overwhelming conscience knows i care most in whats best for her, that she is happy, safe in the strong arms of Eros.

Can i never forgive him, for I know now that he knows nothing of me?… and if he should know a little of me, its clear to me that he has received fractured truths, half pictures, and my place in each picture is purposefully absent. This is the way my Love wanted it. Two lives she lives, and both are fabrication so long as the one exists side-by-side to the other. Ooh, i feel so hollow now. So round, and vague. I’ve been strung along and entertained for a year and my despair works backwards in time and in memory. How quickly i can be cut out of a storyline….

But alas, i realize I am asleep. He is only a dream; a figment of my imagination, never to have ever existed in truth… i think.

The Best of Vital Speeches....

With Obama and McCain about to duke it out… perhaps, like me, you’ll find interest in
looking to 25 of the greatest speeches to have ever changed our world. I found
a site that features a DVD where you can listen to them.

The following are thought to be the most provacative 25, each selected based on an
evaluation of their historical relevance, the events that followed, and the rhetoric used.

25. Albert Einstein… Peace in the Atomic Era
24. Ronald Reagan… President’s Farewell Address
23. Richard M. Nixon… Presidential Resignation
22. Newton Minow… Program Control
21. Leonid Brezhnev… Peaceful Coexistence
20. Golda Meir… Political Problems of the Middle East
19. John F. Kennedy… Freedom’s Cause
18. Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin… Israeli Egyptian Peace Treaty
17. J. Edgar Hoover… Our Achilles’ Heel
16. Winston Churchill… Alliance of English-Speaking People
15. George H. W. Bush… War with Iraq
14. John F. Kennedy… For the Freedom of Man
13. Douglas MacArthur… Don’t Scuttle the Pacific
12. Mao Tse-tung… People’s Democratic Dictatorship
11. Harry S. Truman… Communist Attach on Korea
10. Dwight D. Eisenhower… Liberty Is at Stake
9. Lyndon B. Johnson… United States Vietnam Policy
8. Harry S. Truman… Warning to Japan
7. Adlai Stevenson and Valerian A. Zorin… Has the USSR Missiles in Cuba?
6. Winston Churchill… The Retreat from Flanders
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt… Good Start Toward Lasting Peace
4. George W. Bush… The War in Iraq
3. Adolf Hitler… The Position of Goverment
2. George W. Bush… A Nation Stunned
1. Franklin D. Roosevelt… The President’s War Address

Anize Con 2008

Last weekend, i found myself in Syracuse, for a competitive frisbee tournament. But, the most
special part of the trip was meeting up with the Anize crew… these are the wizards behind the
curtain who stand guard at night, keeping the Anize interface running smoothly. Here’s a pic of us:

Bell, James, DFC, DBGrandi

Round two (solemn faces): Bell, James, DFC, DBGrandi